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It is with much regret that I inform you of the transition of Sgt. Preston Jowers at 5:51 AM this morning. I believe that at 105 years old he was the oldest member of our famed group, The Tuskegee Airmen. The arrangements are being completed at Cantrell Funeral Home (Detroit). The specifics will be sent once completed. Please Pray for his family for he shall be truly missed.
Ocoee Massacre: We Are Back There Again.
John Burl Smith
Rabbi Mark Diamond, a senior lecturer on Jewish studies at Loyola Marymount University and former executive vice president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California said, “I was stunned to hear Trump’s remarks at a rally in an election campaign for the presidency is beyond reprehensible. This is at the heart of Nazi ideology… This has brought so much tragedy and destruction to the Jewish people and to others. It’s actually hard to believe he would push the ‘the racehorse theory, eugenics in 2020, we have to revisit these very dangerous theories.”
But however, this is where we are, “back there again!!!” What Americans must know is where it all began, and for that story we must look back to 1912 and the eight years that followed. Those were the eight divisive years of Woodrow Wilson, father of segregation, white supremacy and the “Dark Age” angry white men mob madness era. At the end of those years, America faced a real choice, whether to maintain Wilson’s legacy or change direction.
Today, 2020, America is back there once again, traveling at breakneck speed, as though it has been teleported mental, and in some cases, physically to the 1920s. That mental retrogression, for some, who never left, is the world many white people are desperately fighting to maintain. They see better “race relation,” as an invasion of their world. This is why segregation and white supremacy never died. Now Donald Trump is like an antediluvian echo, bringing alive thoughts and considerations of Woodrow Wilson’s specter to haunt America will Wilson’s ghostly spirit.
However, there is no cocoon that provides a safe haven or bright road to exit into the gated-communities that shuts out the demands of young white, black, red, brown, yellow and LGBT progressives, trying to create an alternative to their parents' world. They will not return to that benighted time in America. Beyond Trump’s reality that has engulfed America—murderous policing and white nationalists and militias standing by as backup—will never convince progressives to relinquish their love and pride. It is as though America, through time, events and Divine intervention has mercifully or vengefully provided the choice of clinging to its horrid and murderous past or finally breaking free and actually trying to live out the true meaning of its creed—freedom, justice and equality.
Again, it is as though we, as a people, have been transported back to that morning on November 19, 1863 when Pres. Abraham Lincoln gave his immortal Gettysburg Address. The first 4 lines of it encapsulates the past and present, as well as projects the possible future America faces once again: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” Now, as then, Pres. Lincoln laid upon the table for every American to either take heart and be willing to struggle to make real what Pres. Lincoln saw or stand with the “Proud Boys,” who have walked away from his challenge in anger, leaving his sentiments to rot, as the corpora in the graves Pres. Lincoln prayed over.
Carried back to that place by COVID-19, economic decline, loss of health care, voter suppression and deaths of descendants of slaves in war and on the streets by police in America. It seems almost daily there is a George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and now Jonathan Price, the list continues growing, while not one white man or woman has died at the hands of police. Such obvious racism has brought Americans face to face with it past and present, and young progressives say “Enough is Enough.” That cloudy morning on which Pres. Lincoln spoke, symbolizes the condition of this nation today, covered over by COVID-19, as it hovers over America, like the “grim reaper.” Most shutter and wonder whether it will be the storm, which consumes us or will Americans brave these troubling times before us and stand together, as our forefather stood against the confederate menace.
The following retrospective on America’s past, which we have been teleported to without leaving our easy chairs, reflect the time, like today, in terms of choices, that lay before Americans back in 1912. The 1920 US choice for president on November 2 was the 34th quadrennial election. It was the first election, after WW I ended, and was also the end of Woodrow Wilson’s tumultuous and deadly 8 years, especially for slavery’s descendants. An incumbent Democratic, Wilson did not want to give up power; however Democratic Party leaders refused to re-nominate the ailing and unpopular incumbent President. Wilson fought for a third term, but party leaders balked, favoring Ohio Governor James M. Cox.
Former President Theodore Roosevelt emerged the front-running Republican, but passed in 1919 without an obvious successor. A little-known dark horse candidate Republican Sen. Warren G. Harding, from the swing state of Ohio, survived a brokered convention to content for the US presidency. Most pundits gave Harding little change starting out, because Wilson had totally dominated the previous 8 years and Republicans seemed to be without direction.
Woodrow Wilson had several candidates, including his AG, A. Mitchell Palmer, carrying his water and laid his hopes on a shadow presidency. Wilson and his white supremacy supporters were trying to keep a live his wartime economic boom, which had collapsed and the country was in deep recession. Wilson’s chickens came home to roost; his anti-unionist stance produced major strikes in the meatpacking and steel industries. Wilson’s racist attacks of “Red Summer” (1919) in Washington D. C., Chicago and other large and small cities had black communities, fearing for their lives and property; things continued to worsen. Coupled with AG Palmer’s charge anarchist had attacked Wall Street, he incited fears radicals and terrorists were trying to take over America. Wilson openly stoked white supremacy with racist rhetoric, and held massive KKK marches in the nation’s Capitol. Today, Donald Trump is pushing the same fears with Antifa and supporting QAnon conspiracies, miming 1920.
Winning by a landslide, Harding swept every state outside of the South, while becoming the first Republican, since the end of Reconstruction, to win a former Confederacy state, Tennessee. Harding’s victory margin of 26.2% in the popular vote remains the largest popular-vote percentage margin in presidential elections. Cox won just 34.1% of the popular vote.
This was also the first election, after ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment (1920), it was the first in which women voted in all 48 states; the total popular vote increased dramatically, from 18.5 million in 1916 to 26.8 million in 1920. Although the times are very different, the political circumstances are very similar, on the anniversary of these deadly times, Republicans have promised to put 50,000 “poll watchers at minority polls,” in an effort to suppress the vote on November 3, 2020. I selected “The Ocoee Massacre,” of 1920 to complete the parallel and warning to black voters of what Republicans hope to do.
The KKK was a major political and cultural force in the South, and dominated the state of Florida. Their strongest footholds were in Orange and Lake Counties. The Klan held rallies and met regularly in shows of force. Claimed 90% of “law enforcement officers, judges, public servants and lawyers” were members of their hooded order in Winter Garden and Ocoee, they marched in full regalia, white hoods and all. The KKK held rallies in the streets of cities like Orlando, Daytona, Miami, and Jacksonville to intimidate and scare any blacks, who would dare cast ballots. They demonstrated their strength and one report said an Orlando rally was 500 strong.
The first time women could vote—including black women throughout the South, Republicans worked with prominent local black leaders in voter registration drives across most states. Black votes spread the word, signed up voters (paying poll taxes for those who could not), and encouraged them to turn out on Election Day. Black voter activities exacerbated plans of local whites, especially the Klan, who sought to maintain both white and Democratic dominance in state and local politics. Whites felt, blacks were beginning to reach above their station; they needed to be put down and back in their place, as defined by white people.
Hoping to preserve “white supremacy and one-party rule,” the Klan threatened black voters before and during the election. Three weeks prior to Election Day, the KKK vowed that “Not a single ‘Nigger’ will be permitted to vote.” Newspapers played a crucial role in 1920, firing up the white conservative base. Blasting the state with inflammatory headlines, they hoped to spark fear and trepidation among whites around the state. They declared “Negros would soon take over; democracy would be overrun and lost to servants and cooks.” (“Emancipation Betrayed: The Hidden History of Black Organizing and White Violence in Florida From Reconstruction to the Bloody Election of 1920,” Paul Ortiz, (2006), University of California Press).
Judge John Moses Cheney, Republican Florida Senate hopeful, helped fund the voter registration campaign. Moses Norman and Julius “July” Perry, both were prosperous land owners and labor contractors, who supported the local voter registration efforts. They also paid poll taxes for those who could not pay. Cheney, the wealthy owner of Orlando Power and Light, needed major help from black voters, if his campaign had any hope. Running as a Republican, Cheney’s previous congressional and gubernatorial campaigns had all fallen well short, since 1900. Voter fraud was rampant, white poll workers challenged African American voters’ registration. White poll workers refused to allow newly registered blacks to vote, unless the notary public R. C. Biegelow substantiated their registration. However, Biegelow was said to be on a fishing trip and could be to locate. Many African Americans, including Norman, were already registered to vote, but were not permitted to vote either.
On November 1st, the day before the election, with robes and burning crosses, the Klan paraded through streets of the two black communities in Ocoee all night. With megaphones, torches and crosses, they warned “not a single ‘Nigger’ will be permitted to vote” and if any dared try, there would be dire consequences. On Election Day blacks attempting to vote in Orange County were blocked from entering polls. White enforcers camped out around the poll and instructed poll workers to deflect their attempt to vote.
Moses Norman tried several times to vote earlier and was turned away. However, on his attempt and accompanied by other black citizens seeking to vote, the Klan forcibly turned Norman away exclaimed, “We will vote, by God!” Norman was armed when he returned. He demanded poll workers’ names when he was denied access to the pole. But white guarding the poll attacked him. The gang of whites overpowered and beat him, only with help from Reverend Edward Franks, Norman escaped the mob with his lives.
The day of the election, white mobs formed and paraded through the streets of Ocoee, spoiling for a fight. African Americans gave up on voting and left polling places. Later during the evening, Colonel Sam Salisbury, a white KKK leader of the town, a native-New Yorker, as well as former police chief of Orlando, led the lynch mob to “find Norman.” The white mob, over one-hundred men, marched to “July” Perry’s house and demanded Norman surrender. Surrounding Perry home, another prosperous local black farmer and contractor, he fortified his dwelling and armed himself. He did not respond to their demand for Norman. Receiving no answer, the mobsters attempted to break down the front door. Perry opened fire on the intruders, wounding several and driving the white mob back. During the battle, Sam Salisbury, leader of the mob, kicked in the back door and two white mobsters were killed, attempting to enter.
The white mobsters called for help, then withdrew, awaiting reinforcements from Orlando, Apopka and Orange County. Injured seriously during the shooting, July Perry, his wife and daughter attempted to flee, but were captured. Perry was lynched, his body “riddled with bullets” and flagged on a utility post. A sign reading “This is what we do to niggers that vote!” was left with his body. A local photographer sold photos of Perry’s body for 25 cents each; several stores placed the photo, in their windows, as an exhibit of white power. The men who killed Perry were not arrested. Perry’s wife, Estelle and their daughter were wounded also, during the battle, but survived and made it to Tampa for treatment.
The mob began rioting in the African American community. They set home afire and shot those fleeing the flames. African-American churches, schools and a lodge were burned. African American residents fought back from the burning ruins of their homes. Eventually, residents were driven into the nearby orange groves and swamps. The reinforced mob destroyed African American communities. Norman escaped to Chicago and never returned. They escaped to neighboring towns, leaving behind their homes and possessions. African American residents in southern Ocoee were driven out (racial cleansing or banishment), as the massacre progressed. Nearly 100 African Americans were believed killed. Those that survived were threats and driven out of town. Ocoee became “an all-white town until 1981, as Forsyth, County Georgia, another banishment and ethnic cleansing site.” (“Kill Two Whites and Six Negroes in Florida Riot”, 11-4-1920, New York Times). Along with East St. Louis and “Black Wall Street” these riot are considered “The bloodiest days in modern American political history for American Descendants of slavery by many.” (Excerpt from “The 400th” From Slavery to Hip Hop Now on the market at Kindle Books, Amazon, and Brans & Nobles).
